Suzie Racanello played L.A.’s Troubadour Club

The famed Troubadour Club in Hollywood has helped launch some of the biggest acts in the music business, from Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt to Elton John and the Eagles.

Its iconic stage was also graced several times in the 1960s, during the height of the American folk music revival, by a talented southern California female teen string trio, one of whose members would later embrace La Conner as her hometown.

Suzie Racanello, who still harmonizes while on car rides with local friends Faye Whitney and Bobbi McMullen, revisited in a recent Weekly News interview those halcyon days when she was part of L.A.’s heady entertainment scene, a period since captured in a critically acclaimed 2011 documentary featuring the Troubadour and its legendary owner, the late Doug Weston.

“Music fills me up to here,” Racanello said last week, figuratively raising her hand high. “Just recalling those days is delightful.”

And how could they not be, when a night at the Troubadour meant the three teenagers, neighbors growing up in Northridge, could compare notes with rising stars such as Gordon Lightfoot and Hoyt Axton?

Performing as “Suzie, Patty & Christine,” they earned their Troubadour gigs by wowing the charismatic 6’-6” Weston, widely recognized as the “godfather of the of the Southern California singer-songwriter movement” of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

“We performed at what was called ‘Hoot Night’ at the Troubadour on several occasions,” Racanello explained. “He (Weston) asked us to audition. I remember we had so much hope he would like us. And he did. He said: ‘You got it, girls.’”

The trio was influenced by the popular folk-rock artists of the day. Meeting Lightfoot, considered Canada’s greatest songwriter, was a singular highlight.

“Backstage, waiting to go on, Gordon was also in the dressing room with us,” she said. “He was very upset as his equipment had not yet arrived from Canada. He looked at me and said: ‘May I use your guitar?’ I said: ‘Well, of course, you may.’ It’s the same guitar I have today, a steel six-string.”

Music is in Racanello’s DNA.

“I was always involved in music,” she noted. “My parents had a music room with a piano, organ, electric vibes, a guitar and even a trumpet. My father came home from his job, changed out of his three-piece suit and they rocked out before dinner. I took piano lessons for years and still have a piano and I read music.”

She found kindred souls in the other trio members.

“I met Patty while walking home from middle school,” said Racanello. “She had a swimming pool and a horse. We played music soon after. We met Christine in high school. Her father was a studio musician. They also had a music room. He said: ‘Have at it, girls.’ She was desperately talented as a songwriter, musician and vocalist.”

Their chemistry, clearly evident in a photograph of them playing at the Troubadour – one that Racanello has occasionally posted on social media – was something not easily duplicated.

“I played with other musicians,” she said, “but never found a fit with another group. But we always had fun. I have another picture of myself and other musicians at my home. It’s still on my fridge.”

Racanello, who formerly lived on Park Street in La Conner and now resides on nearby Pleasant Ridge, is okay with having left the bright lights behind.

“My father retired,” she said, “and my parents moved to their property on San Juan Island. I’ve never regretted coming here. The music industry was brutal in L.A. It really wasn’t what I wanted.”

It helped that La Conner was then home to the eclectic 1890s Inn, where headline groups were frequently booked between shows in Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.

“We loved dancing there to the great live rock and roll,” Racanello said.

As a teen, back at the Troubadour, she had gotten an up-close look at the pressure cooker that is the entertainment business.

“One time in the dressing room while waiting to go on, Hoyt Axton’s manager was swearing up a storm,” she said. “He was furious that Hoyt had not yet arrived. He looked at us and said: ‘Stretch it, girls.’ Stretch it? We had four songs prepared. We stretched it and Hoyt showed up.

“Years later,” said Racanello, “I was pleased to see him (Axton) portraying the father in the film ‘The Black Stallion.’ And then again as the father in ‘Gremlins.’ He was a very talented singer, songwriter and actor.”

Still, the hard edge of the music business fades quickly when Racanello harkens back to the thrill of taking the stage at the Troubadour.

“Every day created favorite memories,” she said. “Who would be in the audience tonight? Who was on the marquee?”

Whitney can attest to that sense of excitement.

“I’ve known her since I was 16, when she first moved to La Conner,” Whitney, herself an accomplished vocalist, said of Racanello. “I don’t know exactly when I learned about her experiences singing in California, but we’ve been the best of friends for many years and I likely heard about it decades ago. I know, for her, it was just a fun and exciting time in her life.”

Racanello confirms that, literally in a heartbeat.

“L.A.,” she said, “had its finger on the pulse of the music of the times. It still does.”

While “Suzie, Patty & Christine” never made the Troubadour marquee or received pay for their performances, they were enriched nonetheless.

“We were beyond pleased to be there with the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie, The Dillards, Hoyt Axton and the list goes on.”

As does the storied nightclub whose history they all share.

“The Troubadour,” she said, “is still there.”